The present invention relates to a bread baking apparatus wherein kneading, fermenting, baking steps and the like are sequentially executed for dough stuffs contained in a container.
The above-mentioned bread baking apparatus has been commercially produced as an electric home bakery. Such a home bakery comprises a container, an impeller provided in the inner bottom of the container so as to be driven by an electric motor, and an electric heater provided under the container for baking dough. Upon turn-on of a start switch, the dough stuffs contained in the container are agitated and kneaded by the impeller, thereby obtaining the dough. The dough is thereafter fermented by yeast and then baked by the heater, thereby obtaining bread. In a fermenting step, the temperature of the container is detected by detecting means and the heater is energized when the temperature of the container is too low for the fermentation. The temperature of the container is thus maintained at a value suitable for the fermentation. The impeller is rotated for a short period during the fermenting step so that a gas removing operation is intermittently performed in order that gas or bubbles contained in the dough are removed.
The above-described prior art bread baking apparatus provides for much convenience since operation steps from the kneading step to the baking step are automatically performed in sequence. However, the prior art bread baking apparatus has a disadvantage that the bread baked by the apparatus has a somewhat bad appearance.
This disadvantage results from the circumstances that the appearance of the baked bread depends on whether or not the gas removing operation has been performed skillfully. In the prior art bread baking apparatus, the impeller is rotated at the same speed in the gas removing operation as in the kneading step. As a result, the baked bread surface is sometimes rendered rough or the bread sometimes has a lot of relatively large internal cavities, thereby spoiling the appearance of the bread. It is further considered that such a bad appearance is due to the fact that gluten of the dough is cut into pieces by the impeller rotated at high speed, thereby intensifying damage of the baked bread. While, when the rotation speed of the impeller is reduced, bubbles contained in the dough are not sufficiently removed, which also causes the formation of the relative large cavities in the bread.